From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 2811 invoked by alias); 24 Jul 2006 00:15:34 -0000 Received: (qmail 2761 invoked by uid 22791); 24 Jul 2006 00:15:33 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from nevyn.them.org (HELO nevyn.them.org) (66.93.172.17) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31.1) with ESMTP; Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:15:31 +0000 Received: from drow by nevyn.them.org with local (Exim 4.54) id 1G4o6b-0005HB-JN for gdb-patches@sourceware.org; Sun, 23 Jul 2006 20:15:29 -0400 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:15:00 -0000 From: Daniel Jacobowitz To: gdb-patches@sourceware.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Add expat to the GDB sources Message-ID: <20060724001529.GA20102@nevyn.them.org> Mail-Followup-To: gdb-patches@sourceware.org References: <20060718134048.GA15685@nevyn.them.org> <20060723224032.GA5168@trixie.casa.cgf.cx> <200607232318.k6NNIV28004376@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200607232318.k6NNIV28004376@elgar.sibelius.xs4all.nl> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11+cvs20060403 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2006-07/txt/msg00327.txt.bz2 On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 01:18:31AM +0200, Mark Kettenis wrote: > Depending on an external expat package comes with the additional > maintenance cost of testing the detection code and handling additional > bug reports from people who can't build gdb because of problems with > expat. I don't think this is a high cost, I really don't. We should document our own requirements clearly. If we have requirements that themselves have complicated dependency chains - I don't know if we will - then we can even document that. > Depending on an external expat would be acceptable for me if the bits > of GDB that depend on it would become optional, such that we can > choose not to build them if expat is not available. That's far more error-prone than either alternative. You complained about the cost of testing the detection code, which I think is pretty trivial; but this would require testing two different code paths in GDB itself, and fielding "my flash doesn't work" bug reports from people who failed to link against expat. For scripting language support, I've been considering optional dependencies, but for absolutely everything else I think we should avoid them. Ship it, or require it at configure time, please. -- Daniel Jacobowitz CodeSourcery